Bitcoin Forum

Hey you all, has any one seen that bitfloor is back up?  It looks like we could use it again but I don't see any news about this along with the plan on the repaying the coins?  Hello anyone, info please

Hmm.  100% cold storage.

Hmm. 100% fractional reserve.

Doesn't look like it.  The lost coin balance is reported but shown as "hold" (i.e. untradable).  My guess would be that as it is repaid the "hold" balance is reduced and the available balance is increased.

Just placed a few orders.  Working.  Good Luck.

Should I be looking to add BitFloor as an exchange for ATP then?  Just don't want to waste time, but if trades are executing correctly I wouldn't mind adding them to the bot.

That is what I was thinking as well but it would be nice to know if that is the plan or what?  At this point I am glad to see it is not gone (both the site and my balance).

I agree a plan in writing would be a good idea at this point. 
Still keeping the balance up and keeping it locked is a good sign IMHO.

I hope Roman includes an option to transfer the debt balance between accounts.  Those who are willing to get paid over time you buy the debts of those who want "something" right now.  Essentially a market (even if just in forum) could form based on based on the repayment likelihood & rate.

I like that idea.  I don't have much but I think a bailout fund with a longterm repayment schedule would be a good investment.  I would want to know a lot more about the attack and the actual steps taken to prevent it from occuring again though.  Just thinking about bitcoinica here.

I smell some Stockholm syndrome

https://plus.google.com/109620439233076225324/posts/bLJRDHApjSP

Quite to the contrary.  The problem is that many of these exchanges have been hacked recently.  Seems like every month or so, one or the other of them ends up going belly up.  Some of these aren't legitimate security failures, they are the result of lazy coding or security practices.  Some are just out right fraud.  It's the wild west right now.

However I have extreme faith that all of this is the result of a few bad actors in an ecosystem populated by "mostly" honest folk.
I'd like to see bitcoin adopted as a currency neutral exchange medium, something that can be spent offline as easily as it's spent online.

To do that we will need to have people willing to accept the currency, i.e. Merchants.  
Those people will need a safe secure place to store their funds that is also liquid enough that they can change it into and out of whatever currency they need on the fly.

Safety means a couple of things here.  First off it means that if I get a Euro for my cookie today I'll still have that same Euro tomorrow.  To do that it means I either need to denominate my account in EUR or the EUR/BTC exchange rate needs to be at least somewhat steady.  The way to do that is through arbitrage trading across the exchanges.  As you know I'm already working on that one right now.  Ideally the exchanges would run the bot themselves and normalize the prices via seamless inter-exchange arbitrage.

The second thing that safety means is that if I need my Euros (dollars, whatever), that they are still at the institution I left them at.  Honestly, if the exchange suffers a security breach that should be their problem, not mine (the merchant or the consumer).  
However it becomes my problem when it forces them to shut down due to a liquidity crisis and leaves me without my money.

The solution to that is 2 fold.  For immediate needs there needs to be a debt buying fund that can refill or refund the BTC balances of the customers effected by the breach.  For a fund like that to work there just needs to be someone willing to take a gamble and buy up the currently illiquid accounts at a discount and wait for the service to recover. (However the service needs to be willing to recover, some just roll over and die or pass the buck, that's where the risk is for the bailout fund.)

The best solution long term is for an independent agency to establish a deposit insurance fund.  
Deposit taking institutions could buy into the fund. Their premium would a certain fraction of their holdings for instance 1% + a similar fraction of new deposits taken.  Said fraction could be set up or down according to their adherence to a set of security best practices.
 
When one of these places suffers a liquidity problem, the deposit insurance fund steps in and resolves it by providing the necessary funds for the institution to continue operations, this would be a loan and not a gift, the loan would be fixed term and paid back over time with interest, thus providing an income stream to the fund and it's investors.

Like I said, easy enough.  We just need honest folks to run it and more honest folks to join it. ;)

shtylman,

Great post.  Glad to hear of the security improvements.  I'll be back.  If you continue with your former great service to the community and now with the added benefit of the new security it should be a win/win situation for everyone.  Good luck with the recovery.  

Excellent news!

Thanks for the update and congratulations on your speedy recovery.

Given what happened, it looks like you're playing the cards you've been dealt pretty well.

https://plus.google.com/109620439233076225324/posts/bLJRDHApjSP

This is great news and glad this is all happening.  I am really glad that the posts being made are answering allot of questions and this just shows me it is a solid business being operated.  I say move from this thread to the others that have more information and I am glad we can move forward.

Has anyone legitimately attempted to insure deposits/transactions against fraud and loss? I spent years with and insurance and I can't figure out how to translate the FDIC template to BTC deposits, at any rate. The risk of fraud is far too high, especially from the insurance holders themselves. When their account is at an all time high why wouldn't every single lowlife operator fake a hacker compromise and funnel the money to himself?


A nice idea my friend, but that is not the kind of world we live in. Always have to make sure to cover your ass.